So, do they now deserve to be classified as "professionals" by Hayden?
Hayden will have to try it out to know.
He used the [Stinky Cloud Technique].
The large underground room was immediately filled with thick, green smoke that smelled like rotten eggs, and visibility was extremely low.
"Ugh! Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!"
A series of horrific screams echoed through the basement. The stench of the [Stinky Cloud Technique] was so precisely targeted that it stimulated the human nerves, causing most of the students to vomit violently.
Hayden, however, was already wearing a gas mask and strolling leisurely through the dense green fog.
Military-grade magical devices automatically deploy shields when they sense an attack approaching rapidly; however, these shields are not omnidirectional spheres, as that would consume too much magical energy. The devices only automatically deploy a single-sided barrier—but what use is this against gas?
If these students were professionally trained soldiers, they would have adjusted their protective shields immediately. Unfortunately, it seems they aren't.
Without pilots—because they too were vomiting—the five drones switched to autopilot mode on their own. Arms raised, engines roared, and they charged toward Hayden. Humans might vomit from the stench of the smoke, but the golems wouldn't. The dense green clouds might blind humans, but they couldn't fool the drones' sensors.
However, their charging formation was still disrupted.
Because they are currently being controlled by autopilot programs, and these five modified drones are using different autopilot programs, it's impossible to expect them to be able to coordinate operations on their own in this situation.
An experienced soldier would realize that at this point, it would be better to be slower and have all five golems surround the enemy together, rather than sending them out one by one.
But the students had no experience. They were already in chaos.
So the first golem to rush towards Hayden was a two-meter-tall knock-off machine wielding a spear. However, before it could thrust its weapon at Hayden, it vanished.
Hayden initially struck the floor with his scepter, summoning thick smoke, and simultaneously cast a [Pit Creation] spell on the floor. This knock-off golem was now completely on autopilot; its second-rate sensors, while able to see the biological target, failed to notice the pit beneath the smoke. Charging halfway, it naturally didn't have time to dodge and tumbled right into it.
The golem won't break easily, or at least it won't break easily. But this pit is twenty meters deep, and the opening is small while the inside is large; unless you can fly, you definitely can't climb out.
"Tsk, didn't manage to mess with the main machine."
Hayden glanced at the bottom of the pit and even showed a dissatisfied expression.
But the next drone to charge forward wasn't some cheap knock-off that would easily fall into a pit. This [Rakshasa] drone, hijacked and enhanced by [Bo Xun], hurtled forward like an arrow, leaping over the crater and slashing its longsword at Hayden. Hayden wasn't a martial arts expert; he couldn't even dodge this lightning-fast strike. He could only raise his scepter to block—and his parry was naturally shattered by this devastating blow, capable of splitting rocks and even smashing dump trucks.
His steps faltered, his body swayed, and he was riddled with openings. Before Hayden could regain his footing, the second strike from the [Rakshasa] drone followed.
Then it fell down.
Because in the instant Hayden began to stagger, he had already pulled out a bottle of sticky white potion, tossed it onto its left leg, and stuck the golem firmly to the ground.
"Mercenaries are very good at acting, kids."
He regained his footing, a smug look on his face.
It's a pity that no one paid attention to him.
By this time, when Hayden had already calmly dealt with the two golems, the students finally snapped out of their initial chaos. They frantically cast Dispel Magic, crackling arcane energy shooting in all directions, and finally managed to dispel Hayden's Stink Cloud spell.
[Dispel Magic] is a very violent modern arcane spell that forcibly breaks the spell it cancels by consuming more mana. If two identical mages are dueling, the one who chooses to use [Dispel Magic] may actually lose more mana.
However, real battles are not duels between two identical mages. When outnumbered, the enemy can completely negate any effort you make, and still have the energy to cast shields and counter-attack spells.
With so many students and military-grade magical devices, they're bound to succeed if they keep throwing out magic.
Their vision cleared again, and they saw that two of the five golems had been toppled.
"Restore manual control!"
Yolanda screamed in anger.
"Don't let the golems go up one by one and get themselves killed! Surround him! Attack him simultaneously!"
The student pilots quickly complied. Of the remaining three, two were modified knockoffs, and one was a genuine "Rakshasa," each wielding a long-handled weapon taller than Hayden. Tricks were useless in this situation. Long swords slashed towards Hayden's head, and spears pierced his body. Hayden had nowhere to retreat, nowhere to dodge.
These combat drones are powerful enough to smash him and his shield to smithereens.
So Hayden began by saying, "ventus."
This word is the Latin word for "wind".
When the longsword and spear pierced Hayden, they encountered only the wind.
A turquoise breeze swept through the three drones, swiftly traversing the room to the students' astonishment, before flying behind a student pilot and transforming back into human form. A bronze scepter swung down, lightly touching the student's back. The infusion of a stun spell caused him to collapse.
Military magical devices only automatically deploy shields when they sense something flying rapidly towards them. This is because if nearby comrades were to touch you, they would be automatically repelled by the shield, making the battle impossible.
One of the pilots fainted.
Hayden picked up the remote control from his hand and pressed the large red emergency stop button. One of the drones stopped moving.
The students, who had just barely recovered from the chaos of the [Stinky Cloud Technique], felt a chill run down their spines as they watched this scene.
Only two golems remain capable of dealing with Hayden.
"Have the golems attack him simultaneously!"
Yolanda repeated herself. She looked frightened, but she remained firm in her stance.
"Let's all huddle together! Everyone use spherical shields to completely envelop us!"
This trick actually works a little.
Hayden frowned as he watched the remaining eighteen students huddle together, surrounded by eighteen spherical protective spells. For some reason, he didn't attack first, even though he knew the students wouldn't be able to regroup before several fell. Instead, Hayden waited until they were all together and in defense before raising his scepter, aiming at them, and saying, "[Disintegration Protection]."
A green, spiraling flash of light immediately shot out from Hayden's scepter, shattering the three protective shields before dissipating in front of the fourth, blue shield. The three students whose shields had been broken immediately cast spells to repair them, and soon the shields were back in place with eighteen layers.
It seems that when it comes to pure magical power, Hayden is indeed no match for so many students wielding military-grade magical devices.
"Tsk, looks like three months' worth of food isn't enough."
The students even heard him mutter something under his breath, but unfortunately no one really understood what he was saying.
That doesn't matter anyway. The remaining two golems have already charged towards Hayden.
"Drones, surround him! Everyone else, don't fire! Don't waste mana! Be prepared, whatever spell he casts, immediately [Dispel Magic]! As long as we fight a protracted battle, we will win!"
Yolanda continued to give orders loudly. She had indeed begun to think things through, and there was certainly a reason for it. If these students really stuck together and fought a protracted battle with Hayden, he would ultimately lose due to magical power.
If this were a real battle, Hayden actually had another option—he could simply run away right now. Although these students were more numerous and had greater magical power, if Hayden could escape, use guerrilla tactics like a hunter, and slowly wear them down, making them waste their magical power under pressure, the final outcome would be self-evident.
But that would be too much of a waste of time.
"The main problem is the number of people. There are just too many."
Hayden coldly watched the golem charging towards him, stroked his chin, and sighed.
"Let's end this practical test here. I need to think about it some more later."
What is this person talking about?
Yolanda and the students were completely baffled. But it didn't matter now. The [Rakshasa] drone had already rushed in front of Hayden, its greatsword about to sever his head. No matter what spell Hayden tried to cast, whether he wanted to dodge or defend, the students would simply [dispel] it, even his signature spell of transforming into the wind was no exception.
The sheer power of sheer numbers is undeniable.
So Hayden began by saying:
"Angela, prepare to fire."
Then a new figure appeared in the large hole in the ceiling of the room.
She was a strange and beautiful woman, dressed in a traditional black and white maid outfit, her long, silver-white hair braided with two gear-shaped hair ornaments. Her face was exquisite and dignified, without a single flaw, making her look like a superior person who had undergone genetic modification and customization before birth.
However, at this moment, her right hand, protruding from the edge of the large hole, betrayed her identity. With Hayden's command, her right hand swiftly reformed into a cannon barrel, her forearm extending to form a circular muzzle surrounded by four symmetrical magnifying lenses. Something on her wrist, resembling a giant gear, began to spin rapidly, securing the cannon. Steam swirled around the barrel, and magical sparks crackled.
Three months ago, when Hayden had just earned 500,000 from Alicia, he said he wanted to equip Angela with a plasma cannon.
However, this thing was not just a plasma cannon in Angela's hands.
"Rainbow Sky Cannon, blue, fire."
As Angela's voice rang out, a beam of blue light burst forth from her right wrist. The light did not strike anyone present, but instead shone on the basement ceiling.
Then what happened next is something no one can explain.
This was so strange that it took the students a full second to realize:
It's actually started raining in this basement.
However, what happened next terrified them even more.
Just as the last two drones rushed towards Hayden, about to kill him, the fine rain also fell on them.
So their steps came to a halt.
Their movements froze.
The broadswords and spears fell with a clang.
Both golems knelt down simultaneously, bowing their heads to the ground.
Only the radiance of the rainbow hangs above their heads, shining brilliantly.
Not to mention the students who were stunned on the spot, even Hayden, who was prepared, couldn't help but feel from the bottom of his heart when he saw this scene—
This scene is simply too terrifying.
038: The Impossible
The two golems prostrated themselves, kneeling at their new master's feet.
"Thank you, my proud master, this new equipment is indeed quite interesting."
Angela touched the cannon barrel on her right hand and said with great interest.
However, Hayden couldn't laugh.
This thing was originally purchased by Hayden from the black market. It was a "Slud 9 Plasma Cannon" designed by Wotan Mystic Technology Company, and was originally intended to be a cybernetic weapon for military combat cyborgs. Hayden bought this for Angela partly because he liked to equip mecha girls with new weapons, and partly because he was curious about how Angela would interact with such a cybernetic weapon.
As a result, after Angela got it, she took it apart herself and did some fiddling that even Hayden couldn't understand, and it even hurt his eyes if he looked at it too much, and then blew her own breath into it.
Finally, this plasma cannon transformed into something indescribable, capable of doing seven different things.
Artificial rain? Conjure rainbows? Make enemy golems kneel at your feet? Ha! That's nothing!
It could even be a plasma cannon!
So Hayden now breaks out in a cold sweat just looking at this damn thing.
This isn't a question of whether or not you can kill him with a single shot.
This is a terror that only those who understand, who can think and comprehend, will know.
For someone who doesn't understand, if we only look at the visual image, what is the essential difference between conjuring rain and rainbows from the basement and the "Stinky Cloud Technique"?
In terms of practical effect, there's not much difference between sprinkling rain on the golems' heads and making them kneel down, and hacking into them directly, right?
Only those who understand ancient magic and arcane arts, those who have enough hacking skills, and those who know that this kind of thing was actually done with a plasma cannon, would scream and run away until they foam at the mouth and collapse from lack of oxygen.
As a magic researcher, Hayden had absolutely no idea how Angela had managed to do such a thing; he couldn't even come up with a reasonable hypothesis. If it were within his comprehension, he could explain why and how it happened. Improbable things would prompt him to consider why they were unlikely. But impossible things were simply beyond his ability to explain.
This was similar to when Angela had transformed his synthetic food cooker into an indescribable all-purpose food processor. Hayden couldn't even figure out the "possible underlying principles."
Over the past three months with Angela, he often had the urge to just lie down and give up thinking altogether. After all, Angela seemed to love him, and if she really wanted to harm him, Hayden would probably be dead no matter what, so there was no need to worry.
The reason he hasn't done so yet is partly because Hayden is genuinely curious about Angela's secret, and partly because he's genuinely worried.
There are far too many stories in this world of magicians who kill themselves while conducting research. They weren't bad people; they might even have acted out of good intentions. Yet, the magic they invented could still inadvertently reduce a country to ruins. With the development of modern arcane and natural philosophy methodologies, such incidents have become increasingly rare. But this is still not unfounded worry.
If Hayden himself were killed, it wouldn't matter; it's just one life.
However, if Angela were to lose control, regardless of the type of loss of control, the outcome would not necessarily be as simple as Hayden dying.
Perhaps, Angela truly possesses the potential to destroy this world...
That's ridiculous. It's highly unlikely.
Hayden shook his head, scoffing at himself for what he was thinking. He should focus on the important matter at hand.
Clearly, without the golem, the remaining students couldn't struggle against Angela for long. Two minutes later, Hayden confiscated all their equipment and conjured several chains to bind them all together.
Then Hayden put on a serious expression, walked over to Yolanda, the female student leader he remembered from yesterday, and said:
"Tell me honestly, where did you get all this equipment? The total price of all of this stuff would be several zeros short even if you sold it all by weight!"
Battle golems are very, very expensive items.
Perhaps that's why Yolanda was unwilling to answer at all.
"Is your overly-good equipment related to those cyborgs in the riot? What's their background?"
Hayden poked her face with his scepter until her hair began to smoke. But Yolanda still refused to answer, staring at Hayden with hatred. Finally, he grew impatient, took a small vial of green potion from his robes, pried open Yolanda's mouth, poured half a vial, and then pointed his scepter at her chest, threatening, "This is my specially made truth-revealing potion. If you utter a single lie before drinking the antidote, you will die a agonizing death from burning internal organs!"